Today on FOX

It’s a regional FOX game today and plenty of good things in store. Highlights from yesterday’s All-Star rally, where Russell and Brad Penny both showed up to thank the fans, footage of Russell’s dad playing the anthem on his saxophone last year and Joe Beimel reading off the lineup, which will be:

ON TOP OF THINGS – The Dodgers have 39 victories, the most wins in the National League. They are a season-high 11 games over .500 for the second time this season. Los Angeles has tied its season high with four consecutive victories and have won five of its last seven games. Los Angeles is 26-4 when scoring first this season, the best winning percentage in the Majors (.867) and 16-7 in one-run games, the best winning percentage in all of baseball (.697).

PACKED HOUSE – The entire three-game series against the Angels is sold out and last night’s paid attendance of 56,000 equaled the single-game Dodger Stadium regular season record. Los Angeles leads the National League in attendance with an average crowd of 45,389.

IF AT FIRST – The Dodgers moved back into first place last night and have spent 54 days of the season atop the NL West. They have been in second place on nine days, third place for 10 days, fourth place for two days and even spent one day in the cellar – April 3, which was the second day of the season.

BIG, BAD BIRTHDAY BOY – Jonathan Broxton is celebrating his 23rd birthday today. Broxton registered his 17th hold of the season last night, tying him for the Major League lead in that category with Scot Shields and Derrick Turnbow.

HOMERING FOR A CAUSE – Tommy Lasorda, Grady Little, Nomar Garciaparra and Luis Gonzalez, along with players and coaches from the 29 other Major League organizations have teamed up with the Prostate Cancer Foundation, to help “Keep Dad in the Game.” As part of the 2007 Prostate Cancer Foundation Home Run Challenge, each time a Major League player goes deep during 60 select games throughout Father’s Day week, pledges will be made and money will be raised for prostate cancer research, a disease that one in every six men will be diagnosed with during his lifetime.

FATHER’S DAY CATCH – Tomorrow, the Dodgers will host the fourth annual Father’s Day catch, presented by Macy’s, where fans are invited to play catch with their parents in the outfield at Dodger Stadium following the homestand finale. For more information, fans can visit dodgers.com/events.

TWO OF A KIND – The Dodgers have won 96 consecutive home games when leading after eight innings, the longest active streak in baseball. Much of that is due to Takashi Saito, who is one of only two Major Leaguers in history to convert 43 of their first 46 save appearances, joining Eric Gagné, who converted 44 of his first 47 save opportunities in 2002 before blowing his fourth chance.

STRIKEOUT KINGS – Dodger pitchers have struck out 10 or more batters 20 times this season, the most in the Majors. Last night the team fanned 14 batters, led by a career-high 11 from Derek Lowe. The team has fanned 521 batters overall, the most in the NL.

OOOH, really, really interesting lineup and it shows that Grady may be ready to trust Loney more consistently by starting him in the three spot. I really hope they deliver and seize the opportunity. Just keep us in it Schmidt and I trust this lineup to score runs.

When Brazoban and Tsao get healthy, they’ll be optioned to Triple-A (unless Ned wants to cut ties with Hendy and Tomko). Anderson is tougher to figure out, since we really don’t need him anymore. He will probably be traded.

Happy 23rd Birthday to Jon Broxton and many more in a Dodger uniform. It’s a wonderful thing baseball does for prostate cancer. Good idea that Father’s Day Catch. We all should be proud of the work our pitching staff is doing. That’s 3 swich hitters making MARTIN & SCHMIDT the only right handed batters in the line up. Right? That’s cool.GO GET ‘UM

I think KEMP should get his share of ABs this year, I think he’s a wonderful ball player and a fine atlete, I just hope they don’t get his number, like they did last year. Then he’ll have to adjust, which I think he has already, I hope everything goes well for him,I think he’ll be around for while.

In the 4th inning of the Padre/Cub game Chris Young hit Derek Lee with a pitch which led to Lee and Young getting into a fight and a bench clearing brawl. Both Lee and Chris Young have been ejected from the game.

fliegel – Pierre has been playing well lately, and Ethier could use a start after riding the bench for so long. Yeah, I want Kemp in there as much as possible, but this lineup is really good overall. 3 veterans and 5 young players in the lineup; it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Geez…the Pads have 5 guys batting under .260 in their lineup, excluding the pitcher (.000) and the prospect (.000) they just called up. So, two guys over .260…that’s pretty sad. Their pitching can not possibly be as consistent as it has all year – injuries will happen, and when they do their offense will not pick them up.

Randy Johnson hit the DL recently, and his D-Backs have definitely cooled off. With the changes going on with the Dodgers’ roster, I am starting to like their chances even better for making it to October.

I think that Tsao and Seanez would serve somewhat similar roles on the big club, so, as long as Seanez does a satisfactory job, Tsao will probably stay in Vegas. He could also be trade bait, but in that case would probably need to come back up long enough to prove his health and effectiveness for the market. It sounds like Brazoban is still experiencing some difficulty, so his status probably won’t change as soon.
It seems like Tomko and Hendrickson really don’t have a legitimate place on the 25 roster, especially if our starters stay in groove and perform like in the last two series. I would like to see at least one of them traded for some value, and I think that could be prospects rather than major leaguers.

Since we have now brought up practically our entire “best prospects” corps (LaRoche excepted), I would like to see how they continue to perform at least until the end of July before we commit to trading for that “big bat”. I don’t feel that we should be under pressure to do so now. Our real underperforming people seem to be Nomar and Kent, and that probably does not present a trading option for us. Pierre is, of course, a separate issue and also not likely to be traded because of his big contract. The best we can pull for there is for some continued improvement on his part and hopes that he will perform better in the second half of the season, as his record shows in the past.

When it comes to getting that big bat, I think we may be best served by waiting until the end of the season and dealing in the Free Agent market rather than getting a short term rent-a-player via trade.

yah im watching the pads cubs game as well, that was great, lee actually caught young on the chin with one. the best part was lou pinnella pulling a jeff van gundy. i dont know why managers/coaches run out there.btw i dont know why lee got hit if anyone was gonna get hit it was soriano for yesterdays homer trot.

I was just readig about WITHROW—-Draft pick as compansation for Julio Lugo. LUGO, if I’m not mistaken, had 12HR for the Redsox. Am I right? Correct me if I’m wrong. Then he came to the Dodgers and had 0. I got a funny thought in my mind but I prefer to keep it to myself.

graffiti,
A-Rod is probably the best offensive players alive. I believe, as Vin said last night, that in the past 10 years he and Jeter are the top two in total hits in the majors. Not to mention he has 10 straight years of 25-HR ball under his belt. The Dodgers need power, and he will be the BEST power bat available for years to come if he opts out. I’m just hoping for the best player – I don’t think he’ll be as much of a media circus if he leaves NY. Besides, he could anchor the middle of the lineup for years so the Dodgers could spend less money on other veterans like Kent and Nomar and allow the kids to take over around him.

arguing with getting a-rod???? There is no question if u can get A-rod for 150 mill for 6 yrs its an easy pickup. its a guarentee of 115 RBI’s and 40 home runs. Immagine this lineup and tell me it wouldnt be worthit in 2010.
Furcal/Pierre

Furcal Pierre

Loney/Martin

A-Rod

Martin/Martin

Kemp

Ethier

Abreu

Talk about a stellar lineup holy cow we would score some runs, Pierre and Furcal would be pushin 130 runs a piece.

And talkin about startin Kemp over Pierre give it a break man, did u not watch Pierre score the winning run yesterday? I understand your favorite player is Kemp and you wanna see him in there but Pierre and Furcal at the top of the order is the reason the dodgers are winning.

Well on the hitting side…the pitching is the reason we are winning. No doubt about it that the MVP’s of this team so far are Penny, Lowe, Broxton(as an 8th inning guy), and Saito, and of course the next all start starting catcher Russ

I Would take him til hes 40, the man is in such good condition. Have you seen some of his work outs, they are nuts the guy is a maniac. Wouldnt it be nice to have him when he breaks the all time homerun record.

Jspelk –
Yup. He’s not had any significant injuries that I know of (I could easily be wrong), he has an easy swing, and his numbers aren’t going down yet. He’s above his career averages thus far this year.

spanky,
The part I like about the lineup you posted is that Martin, Kemp, Loney, Ethier, and Abreu would probably cost about 3 million between all of them in 2 years. You have one great big contract (A-Rod), one too-big contract (Pierre) and who knows what Furcal’s will look like after ’08 if they can re-sign him.

BTW, Zambrano is throwing that thing you shouldn’t talk about against the Pads…no surprise with this God-awful lineup they have. An outfield of Branyan, Bocachica, Sledge…we have nothing to complain about by comparison.

Not to contradict myself but as messagebear said, and I agree I hope, rather than a trade, wait until the time comes, and see if we feel at that time, if going into free agency and spending a good sum of money, is the right thing to do. If that player happens to be A-Rod, Well….

LOL anyone who hits gets over 200 hit sa yr is not garbage plus he will steal more then 45 bases for us this yr he is very valuable to the dodgers, he just does not have good defense. It will show before the yr is over, I mean he is doin OK now and hes not even playin well. we will see when the season is over.

listen people…he has all these hits because he usually leads the leagues in AB’s. His OBP percentage is the only stat that will define how much he’ll help the Dodgers. pierre’s job is to get on base. yes he leads the team in hits but he is hardly getting on base.

**** no he doesnt **** he is one of the best in baseball. over the past 4 yrs he has like the second most wins of any pitcher. Lol im not talkin out of my @$$ about Pierre I actually know the game and if you can have a homerun hitter then why not get a run scoring base stealer they are just as valuable to a team.

its like i pointed out with Lowe. Wins and Loses are the most overrated stat for a pitcher the same was Hits are for a batter. Lowe has 7 wins and 6 loses which just looking at it isn’t very impressive but his ERA is rather impressive at 3.08. He’s better then his win lose record appears to be.

Pierre while he leads the team in hits is last in OBP and slugging. He needs to walk more. If he can have 200 hits with 80 walks he’d be great. but he’ll get his 200 hits and only walk 30 times.

a .309 OBP for a top of the order hitter is garbage. I don’t care if he gets 200 hits. Id much rather see him get 150 hits and 100 walks. His job is to get on base. He hasn’t been doing his job. SO far he has been a monumental bust of a signing. He is hurting the team more then helping at this point.

Abreu is not ready for MLB pitching. Only part of a season out of AA. Will have to be returned to Las Vegas as Kemp was last year. Not a good sign – first two on and we score no runs. C’mon Schmidt. We need a good one. GO DODGERS!!

Abreu has never been a patient hitter, and throughout most of his minor league career, he´s never been a great hitter period. He’s improved his hitting somewhat over the last year or so, but he’s not gonna be the major league hitter that Andy LaRoche will be. He was always a highly rated defensive player. He’ll make a good 2B for us when Kent is gone, but you gotta think ‘defense’ and some OK hitting with Abreu. I’d say an above average number 8 hitter… but someone has to bat 8th right.

Schmidt gave up a base hit to right that scored 2, Seanez was brought in and gave up a single to exactly where Furcal moved away from on a perfect hit and run play. 3-0 Angels. Schmidt was walking a thin line all game and got burned. Not a bad game and if we scored some runs it wouldn’t be such an issue.

You can only finesse with the pitch location so long without a fastball, and Schmidt clearly no longer has that. Hard to imagine a $16 million a year pitcher with a fastball all of 86 mph. That’s what we have.

Makes you wonder – who exactly did the physical examination on Schmidt when he was “approved” for the big contract. There were apparent indications throughout last season that his velocity dropped every month to nearly the point where it is today.

dude…it’s hard to get a whole lot of walks when you’re already hitting successfully over 40 percent of the time….also…the fact that he has only 2 runs scored is not his fault…as you are so quick to go to your go to scapegoats nomar and kent, i would figure that you would blame their failure to cash him in

A .400 BA and ONLY two walks…that puts his OBP on the homestand pretty darn high, right? Can’t possibly defend that. As has been pointed out before here, runs scored has a lot to do with the people batting behind you. Not his fault if he’s getting on base at a .400-.450 clip.

I always wondered about this and since I have an opportunity, maybe the right person might see this::::::::::I wish the Dodgers would retire the following #’s ___14 for GIL HODGES_______6 for CARL FURILLO & you could include Steve Garvey, a great player that also wore the #_____3 for BILLY COX, who was traded just before the Brooklyn World Championship in 1955, but was a big part of the team.

yep, tomorrow some people are gonna complain again when the lineups are posted……player X should be batting 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc…, what is grady doing? is he crazy? player Y should be sitting, etc etc etc…

Is Schmidt a great pitcher and is he missed. First off, history has shown that Schmidt can be dominating at times and borders on greatness. Is he missed? Can you believe what this staff has done without him?

So on one hand yes of course he is missed. But on the other hand, no he is not missed.

If you have to blend a team of very, very veteran players with who knows what left in the tank, and very, very raw talent just up from the minors you could not ask for a better manager then Grady, and Ned is doing a great job as GM.

A big bat would be nice but not at the risk of selling our soul. We may be on the verge of developing power in our own farm system.

Currently only Abreu looks like he might need more seasoning, and don’t forget both Anderson and Betemit can play second to spell Kent and we could call LaRoche up to play third.

Tough game to lose yesterday, especially by shutout, when we had a semblance of our future team lineup out there on the field. Keeping the game in perspective, however, we have nothing to be ashamed of or angry about. This Weaver kid is the real article and probably one of the best pitchers around, and our group of youngsters seemed a bit too anxious at the plate to do much with his stuff. One can always debate whether Nomar and Kent would have done better in the lineup than our young guys. We’ll probably have both of them in there today. I personally love the chance to see our future team together and developing in a real game situation, especially against a good team and a good pitcher. That should have been a learning experience. Needless to say, our youngsters are going to have some good days and a few bad days, and that is nothing to be discouraged about. At least the infield defense looked solid. It could be expected that one or two of the current young players would need to go back and get some more AAA development, but I’ll give the management credit for bringing them all up to find out who’s ready and who’s not.
Love the Dodgers, and I think the glass is more full than empty at this stage of their development.

Have been reading up on the Schmidt situation, and it is really concerning me. None of the parties involved can tell you whether there is anything wrong or not, other than he doesn’t have the velocity and doesn’t have the control of one or two of his pitch repertoire. Not very promising, but Little intends to send him out there anyway every fifth day or so. In my mind we should shut him down from regular starts, put him back on DL, and let him first prove through bullpen sessions and probably another couple of rehab starts in the minors that the velocity is back up to at least 90 along with control of his slider, etc. We would be far better served getting Bills into the rotation and taking those starts over the last half of the season.
I am unhappy with this development, because Colletti gave up a great deal of money for Schmidt that could have been used elsewhere for this team. The whole medical evaluation that was part of the Schmidt signing is suspect to me. Who exactly did the medical evaluation that ccompleted the contract process? When the lack of velocity became an issue earlier this season, it was shown that Schmidt’s velocity was demonstrably declining every month last season. Colletti and Conte supposedly knew the Schmidt situation from years past and were not concerned. They should have been. Why did the Giants not make an effort to retain him?

The giants didnt retain him bc they gave all that money to Barry Zito, and while i agree that the situation is very concerning bc he looks like a shade of the pitcher he was, i dont think you can really blame the medical evaluation.

Everytime I get a crazy thought in my head I want to be the first to post it. I’m sure everybody feels the same way. Then 5 times out of ten you regret you did it. But who cares? It’s all in fun and nobody’s gonna kill ya. So here goes. It doesn’t seem, at the moment that Bill Mueller really intents to stick to the job very long. I was thinking… Why don’t we TRY to get the guy, who brought the team out of it’s dulldrums in 1988? That guy being KIRK GIBSON. His attitute & personality, his ways and style had as much to do with it, as his bat, that turn this team around, he’s still around and he hangs out in the Tiger dugout and I understand he likes us. Of course, I followed everything through a New York newspaper, so there might be a lot I missed.

Reading over this mornings comments on Jason SCHMIDT, I think everybody is concerned and I got to hand it to you MESSAGEBEARER I think you hit the nail right on the head again, when you suggest placing him on the DL and having him make minor league rehab starts, keeping him out of the way and still keeping one eye on him.

I understand that Gibson is the Tigers’ bench coach, but I agree that he would be a very inspiring kind of a guy. Little, of course, has his own selections as part of his coaching staff. My own preference would have been to surround us with people who have some Dodger roots, and that would have included our GM and manager. I know at one point we interviewed Hershiser, and I wish we had him with us in some capacity as well. All of that is probably water under the bridge at this point. We might as well root for Colletti and Little to do the best they can, even if we don’t agree with their actions and judgments. Keep in mind that getting either of them replaced would probably take a year or two of very unsatisfactory and frustrating team performance – something that we as fans wouldn’t really like to live through again soon.

While we wait for the lineup to be posted, let me bore somebody with some reminising, this year reminds me of ’73. The Dodgers showed the world what they had…Garvey, Lopes, Russel, Cey…etc…etc. Then the following year we won the pennant. Lets see if we can jump start this thing and not wait till next year.

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